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‘The New Childhood’ Review: Screening Out the Urge to Worry

When parents feel concern about the ill effects of screen time on their children, are they over-reacting and merely indulging in nostalgia? Naomi Schaefer Riley reviews “The New Childhood” by Jordan Shapiro.

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Naomi Schaefer Riley

Jan. 6, 2019 3:29 p.m. ET

When Jordan Shapiro and his wife separated several years ago, their sons were 4 and 6 years old. At the time, writes the Temple University professor, “they used the Nintendo Wii as a kind of security blanket.” In “The New Childhood,” Mr. Shapiro—a “globally celebrated American thought leader,” according to his personal website—explains that the Nintendo gaming system “provided a sense of stability in their newly chaotic and confusing lives.” He was all too happy to indulge his sons, even if their mother, apparently, was not. Whenever he picked them up from her house, “they would immediately start screaming from the back...